abandonware games sorted by popularity

Released in 1986, Desert Rats is a strategy game that puts you in charge of the North African campaign of World War II. Don’t let the cute title fool you—there are no a...

Back in 1987, Crazy Cars asked the eternal question: how fast can you go before the road becomes an abstract blur? Armed with a sleek sports car and the confidence of someone who&r...

ELIZA, created in the mid-1960s by Joseph Weizenbaum at MIT, was one of the first computer programs to simulate human conversation. Designed as a natural language processing demons...

Hocus Pocus is the kind of platformer that seems to run on pure sugar and cheerful chaos. You play as a young wizard with more enthusiasm than common sense, bouncing through colorf...

By 1996, Legend of the Silver Talisman delivered a more traditional RPG adventure, though with a decidedly old-school feel. It’s a game that doesn’t bother holding your...

Before rhythm games took over, there was Moonwalker (1989), where you play as none other than Michael Jackson himself, saving kidnapped kids by dancing enemies into submission. Yes...

Welcome to 2112, a game that predicted a grim techno-future back when floppy disks still ruled. This DOS-era oddity throws you into a world that’s part cyberpunk, part fever ...

Turns out war is a lot tidier when it’s turn-based. Battle Isle (1991) gives you neat little hexagons to move your units on, like a very angry board game. It’s got stra...

Fantastic Dizzy, released in 1994, stars a cheerful egg with an unfortunate talent for getting into trouble. This platform-adventure hybrid mixes exploration, puzzle-solving, and l...

Beneath Apple Manor is a pioneering game in the roguelike genre, originally developed and released in 1978 by Don Worth for the Apple II and later re-released for DOS as a "Special...

Omikron: The Nomad Soul (1999, Windows XP) is the kind of game that leans across the table and says, “What if we mashed every genre together and asked David Bowie to help?&rd...

Grandmaster Chess is not here to hold your hand, compliment your moves, or pretend that losing is part of the fun. In Grandmaster Chess, you are up against a computer that takes it...

When Die Hard 2: Die Harder hit DOS in 1992, it decided the airport setting meant “time for an on-rails shooter.” Picture John McClane glued to a track, blasting bad gu...

The sequel to Ringworld: Revenge of the Patriarch, Return to Ringworld throws you back into Larry Niven’s vast sci-fi universe—except this time, the puzzles are tougher...

Hard Hat Mack is the kind of game that proves construction work can be more dangerous in pixels than in real life, provided real life had ladders that seem determined to betray you...